


Tabula Rasa

by malchanceux



Series: Blood and Tears [2]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Blood Drinking, Blood and Gore, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Major Character Death (Kind of??), Not-so-Wee!Lecters, Supernatural Elements, Vampire!Will, Vampires, Wee!Lecters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-13
Updated: 2017-11-10
Packaged: 2018-04-04 06:26:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4128232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malchanceux/pseuds/malchanceux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sequel to "Folk Horror".</p><p>Years ahead and years back--</p><p>The Lecter siblings get their happy ending. </p><p>Except they don't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This has been in my "to beta" folder for forever. 
> 
> I'm too lazy and I haven't posted anything in a long while, so I'm just flinging this out there.

"Not like that,” Will says gently, looking at the little girls hands on the fishing rod. Mischa is nestled between his legs, tiny fingers gripping the pole as firmly as she can manage, enthusiastic in her first fishing lesson, “One hand above the reel, one hand below.”

The vampire demonstrates with his own hands, keeping them on the pole until the little girl corrects her grip.

“Very good, Mischa. Now do you remember how to tell when it’s time to reel the fish in?”

Gold curls bounce with an excited nod, “When the fish tug!”

Will grins, pushing himself up and away to stand.

“Such a good student. Call for me when you get a bite. I’m going to see how your brother is doing.”

Will leaves the little girl at the riverbank with confidence. Mischa’s fever broke a week in his care; the cough dissipated not long after. Bundled up in the new clothes the vampire had “borrowed” from a nearby town, she was a bubbly little thing full of life and energy. She would be fine on her own, if not just for the few minutes it would take to track down the eldest Lecter.

Will let his senses roam, enhanced scent, sight, taste, and hearing all working together to locate the young boy. A wisp of fresh blood, the sound of a steady beating heart, and Will was running through the snow like a powerful stag.

He’s greeted by barking dogs and a pleased looking Hannibal, who has two snared hare’s hung over his shoulder.

 _“Tsk,”_ Will hisses and the mutts, Bear and Castor, quiet down.

“It’s a wonder there are any rabbits still in these woods with the way your dogs bark.”

“They don’t know any better,” Will grins, “They’ve never had to be quiet during a hunt before. People aren’t as skittish as hare’s.”

“People don’t taste as good as hare’s.”

“That’s a matter of opinion.”

“Well, that’s mine,” Hannibal huffs, and Will’s smile only grows. So young yet so proud already. The vampire supposed growing up in a castle could do that to a child. Not that he could imagine the regal young Lecter any other way.

They walk in companionable silence towards the river, the dogs giving chase to one another and yipping playfully. Will supposed he could teach his dogs some better manners, for Hannibal’s sake. It really was a wonder and a half they hadn’t completely scared off the boy’s game.

“ _Mischa?_ ” Hannibal says in surprise, and Will looks up, struggling not to laugh at the scene he’s presented. Little Misch, not yet even to Will’s hip, fighting valiantly with the rod and her footing. The vampire hadn’t expected her to get a bite so soon, the fish sluggish this time of year, but there she was, trying her hardest not to go face first into the icy water.

Hannibal all but tosses the hare’s at Will as he lurches forward to steady his sister. His movements are jerky and panicked. Mischa is the only thing in the world that can make prideful, composed Hannibal Lecter move like that, Will muses darkly. The boy’s heart had a rough, stone exterior, and a bleeding, wounded center. The vampire doubted the trauma dealt to the Lecter siblings would ever fully heal.

Together, brother and sister manage to yank the fish up and out of the frosty river.

“Gorgeous,” Will says, coming up behind Hannibal to help pull up the line. The fish is fat and sluggish in its attempts to jerk free from the hook.

“It’s so pretty!” Mischa says excitedly, her cheeks rosy from exertion and cold. “What is it?”

“This,” WIll says as he pulls the fish from the hook, looping his fingers through its mouth instead, “Is a Tench. A very common fish here.”

He holds their catch out for them to see. Mischa reaches out with cautious hands, and feels the silky slime of the Tench’s dark green scales and blue hued fins. She squeals when the fish lurches about on Will’s fingers; Hannibal laughs at his sister’s reaction.

For a moment Will thinks that, even if their dark past follows them forever, moments like these will help heal the young Lecter siblings’ wounds into manageable scars. Thin, pale white fibrous connective tissue left behind like shadows upon the skin. A brail of horror barely read.

For a moment, Will sees a happy ending for them all.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Btdubs all my stuff is unbeta'd. So any mistakes are original works of mine. ;*

Jack Crawford is an abrasive man. His attempts at flattery and demurrage fall flat and clumsy from his tongue. He is a man not used to asking, but demanding. He is a man used to filling a room by puffing out his chest and dominating his colleagues through force of will.

Jack Crawford chafes as he speaks to Hannibal Lecter, because for the psychiatrist’s help he must ask, and since Hannibal has no reason to assist the man, he must roll over and bare his neck to do so.

Doctor Lecter is the kind of man who does not fill a room, but draws respect and attention from all who occupy it all the same. Natural nobility; a blood right. There was no need for posturing or growling, no need for flattery or a barbed tongue. Hannibal Lecter was always the alpha of the pack--whether it be in his home, his office, or the zoo called the civilized world.

“A layman?” Hannibal asks, the laughing wolf behind his eyes teasing; salt to an open wound. “So many learned fellows going about in the halls of Behavioral Science at the F.B.I. and you consider yourself a layman?”

“I do when I’m in your company, Doctor.”

Jack Crawford fumbles like a freshman pulling at a panty girdle.

“I need your help with a psychological profile.”

“And how could I be of help to the F.B.I. anymore than your own profilers?”

“This is a little different. A little… unorthodox.”

Crawford hands Hannibal a sealed envelope. “I want you to profile one of my _profilers_.”

Hannibal’s interests peak.

“Is he suspected of a crime?”

“No, it’s nothing like that. He’s one of my best. He’s just--he gets close when he’s working, to the killers he chases. I need someone unbiased to make sure he doesn’t get lost,” Crawford stops, a look of reluctance passing over his features, “Our shared colleague expressed some concerns with my guy stepping into the field.”

“Alana did? Then why the referral; why not analyse this agent herself?”

“She refused. Says she has a professional curiosity--doesn’t want that to ruin their comradery.”

“That’s a very specific word, comradery. Why not ‘friendship’?”

“Because Will Graham doesn’t have friends. Colleagues he can talk to over the watercooler, maybe, but friends? He’s always strived to be a loner.”

A whole childhood of trauma dredged up and re-lived within a single moment, triggered by a single name.

It couldn’t be.

The rest of the conversation runs like water and ink. On the outside, Hannibal is inscrutable as ever, polite to a fault--but he is not listening. Inside his mind palace, storm clouds have risen to the rafters and flooded all the carefully crafted rooms.

“So tomorrow then, I’ll see you at Quantico bright and early?” Crawford holds out his card, confident that he has won the doctor over.

“Of course,” Hannibal agrees too easily. He had meant to make the agent turn more tricks for his help, like a dog begging for table scraps. Instead, he takes the card with numb fingers and walks the man out on hollow legs. When he returns to his office, Hannibal places the envelope onto his desk and paces the room restlessly.

Impossible.

Ridiculous.

 _Childish_.

He stands before the offensive parchment and glares. The wolf behind his eyes snaps irritably. A simple thing has not managed to rouse his anger in a long time, so how dare a name and a file crack his carefully constructed person suit so easily.

Hannibal takes up the envelope and opens it. The file is thin--so little information can be shared with the doctor until this “Will Graham” is officially his patient. It is probable that most is personal notes kept by Crawford himself.

Hannibal makes to open the file and notices his hands are shaking. The last time he can remember his nerves being so riled is decades ago, during a different time, a different life…

He closes his eyes, let's familiar cold water lap at his hips and belly--comforting sensations from that other time. He breathes deep once, twice; remembers the smell of wet dog and a smoking fire pit.

The doctor drops the file onto the desk. It falls on its spine and opens on its own.

Grey eyes stare up from a three-by-two profile. The shaking in Hannibal’s hands ceases. The wolf behind his eyes grows unnaturally still.

_You are alive._

The rest of the night is turmoil. A flash of bloody memories and tragic separations.

When he returns home well past midnight, he doesn’t tell Mischa about the ghost he has brought with him. He does not tell her why he is so late. She acquiesces to his request for privacy, and leaves him to his solidarity for the rest of the evening.

Though Hannibal is plagued by nightmares for the hours leading up to sunrise, sleep escapes the Lecter house. He can hear Mischa wonder their Baltimore residence restlessly, worried for her brother. Hannibal himself is restless--he will be meeting this gray-eyed doppelganger tomorrow morning.

Is it possible that this Will Graham is the same as the man-eating monster that saved his sister all those many years ago?

_No, he died. We watched him die._

Anger and hope mix dangerously inside Hannibal. He would have to put this “special investigator” to the test. A trial by fire. One the imposter would not survive.

The wolf behind Hannibal’s eyes growled, its teeth bared in an excited smile.

New blood was coming soon.

 


	3. Chapter 3

The house wasn't much, but it’s theirs. 

The wood creaked like an old man’s joints, an unpleasant cracking be it day or night. Whatever paint that had once coated the rickety skeleton either long faded or was peeling away like dead skin. The roof had the most severe damage, suffering long years of neglect. With the harsh winters that had come and gone, the wood had grown weak, and several holes had broken through when Will had first stumbled across the structure. It is a single level cabin, cramped with just one bedroom; cold with it’s single fireplace.

It had taken a lot of time and effort on Will’s part to get the glorified shed in habitable condition for the children, but it had been worth it. Where Will had done the major repairs and heavy lifting, Hannibal and Mischa had taken care of the aesthetics as only young children could. Mostly, shiny rocks or salvaged decorated glass dotted the cabin, but the children had grown bold with their watchful vampire by their side. They had taken to exploring abandon homes and taking whatever had been left behind. 

Cookware, rugs, bedding; Mischa had made Hannibal drag home curtains, even. Some of it was of such good quality it looked laughable in their rickety, old shed.

It was far from the solitude Will was used to, or the caves he had taken to sleeping in on the rare occasions he needed it. He wondered what his prey would think of Will if they saw him like this, playing house with a couple of orphans, letting chubby fingers run loops of Winter Jasmine through his hair, or spending his days hunting for  _ animals  _ to fit the children's’ pallette.

Will sometimes found himself frozen, hands hovering over whatever chore he had been attending to, wondering when he had gone from a murderous vagabond to a den mother. Not even a year ago he was a wraith in the snow, a silent disease slowly creeping through the scattered human encampments--be it of war-tired militants or the fear-bitter refugees.  Now the beast of the Eastern Front sheltered orphans like a catholic nun. The thought should be demeaning--and every time Will’s mind would run down this path he waited to see if the burn of humiliation came. If it did, if his pride bruised and withered, he would kill the Lecter's.

But it never did. The sudden freeze would thaw as quickly as it had come and Will would continue with whatever chore he had interrupted--be it dinner, cleaning, or hunting for animal game.

No, caring for the children never bothered the vampire the way he thought it ought to. Instead, a small fire had been lit inside his chest where once only a cold darkness had laid before. A growing, tender heat. It was a warmth Will could not remember ever feeling before. It was a flame that grew more passionate when Mischa laughed, or at the sight of Hannibal’s rare, toothy grins.

The pleasant heat would pulse like a heartbeat when Mischa lovingly named every one of the fish she caught, or when Hannibal would critique Will’s terrible attempts at cooking. It burned bright when Mischa would sneak into his bed at night, Hannibal not far behind her. The flame _scalded_ the vampire’s insides when Mischa gave Will a kiss ‘goodbye’ before she ran out to play, or when Hannibal held his hand with all the fake indifference a little boy could muster.

Though Will never doubted his intentions for the orphans he watched over, there was a feeling of imminent danger that hung much like a guillotine over the vampire’s head. Faint, but palpable. Like little feet walking over his grave.

This, the life he had with Mischa and Hannibal, was a weakness that would be the end of Will. An anchor that was holding him in one place for far,  _ far  _ too long. His kind were wanderers for a reason. The longer one stayed rooted, the longer a mob had time to form. Kill the monster that haunted their nightmares and ate their kin. The humans were not a stupid animal. They would grow wise to their thinning numbers eventually. 

_ It will be fine,  _ Will would console his jittering nerves, but never the less his fight or flight riled against his new routine.

But just the sight of Mischa’s golden curls, healthy and bouncing with her excitement, was enough for the roots Will had begun to nurture in the crumbling cabin to grow stronger, and hold the vampire in spite of his bone deep instincts. To still the beast that snapped its mawl angrily at the confines of the their new  _ ‘home’.  _

It wasn’t much, but it was theirs. And Will would kill anyone that tried to get in the way of their makeshift happiness.

**Author's Note:**

> [pained, bleating goat noises]


End file.
